Nail the TonePearl Jam

Yellow Ledbetter

Pearl Jam · Jeremy (single B-side); later Lost Dogs / Rearviewmirror · 1992

McCready told Vintage Guitar he cut "Yellow Ledbetter" on a Fender '57 reissue Strat with a maple neck — not the famous '59/'60 Strat he has used live on it for decades. The amp isn't documented per song, but the Ten sessions had his JCM800 4x12 for dirt and a '59 tweed Bassman for cleans, and the track's bright, barely-crunchy lead points at the Fender with a Tube Screamer nudging it. Use the neck pickup with tone around 7 (neck+middle, position 4, also gets close), let the amp break up rather than a pedal, and add reverb from the room, not the guitar.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning in E — no detune needed; the record's voicings are Hendrix-style thumb-over-the-sixth-string grips, and the lead sits over a second Strat track panned opposite.

Part: Solo

Guitar

  • Fender Stratocaster '57 Reissue (maple neck) · vintage-style single-coils · neck pickup

Amp

Fender Bassman 4x10 (1959 tweed)

GAIN
5.5
BASS
3.5
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
4.0

Engineer Dave Hillis says a '59 Bassman Rick Parashar sourced for McCready was in the room alongside his Marshall during the Ten sessions; which amp carried Ledbetter isn't documented, but the clean-to-edge-of-breakup Fender voice matches the record, and the wet sound is studio plate/Lexicon reverb, not an amp control.

Amp

Marshall JCM800 2203 with 4x12

GAIN
3.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
4.0

McCready confirmed a JCM800 into a 4x12 with 25-watt speakers as his dirty amp on Ten; some players get the solo's sweetness from this amp barely pushed rather than the Fender, and he often blended clean and dirty amps with an Ernie Ball pan pedal.

Pedals

  • Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer · overdrive · Drive 9 o'clock, Tone 11 o'clock, Level up — his Ten-era standard, not confirmed on this track
  • Ernie Ball Stereo Volume/Pan Pedal · volume/amp blend · Used to pan between the clean and dirty amps; documented in his 90s rig, not track-specific

Tone character

glassy single-coil chime · edge-of-breakup warmth · rolled-off treble · singing sustain, soft attack · roomy plate reverb wash

hard

The solo is E major pentatonic with fast hammer-on/pull-off triplet runs in the 9th and 12th positions plus wide bends and finger vibrato that have to land in pitch, all at a slow tempo that exposes every sloppy note.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

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Sources